Peter Singer's critique of sociobiology as applied to ethics falls into the it's-okay-but-it-presumes-too-much school. Rather than rejecting Wilson's notions of altruism, Singer spends considerable time restating and defending the ideas of a genetic basis for kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and, to some extent, group selection. With homage to Dawkins, we hear again about the strategies of The Prisoner's Dilemma and other situations in which mutual altruism pays off better than pure selfishness. Only in the second half does Singer present his particular view, which is that moral behavior reflects the human ability to reason. As individuals and cultures mature, reason permits the extension of an ethical code to an ever-widening population. If this smacks of old-fashioned supremacy of Reason over Feelings, and concentric circles of morality (family, group, nation) in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, that is precisely what it seems. One should act with an impartial concern for all, Singer iterates, to promote the best interests of all. (He would, as he's written before, extend concern to other species as well.) He acknowledges that the abstract principle needs to be concretized in rules—to encourage some biological tendencies, to guide specific situations, to instruct the young, etc. However, his invoking of reason as the ultimate desideratum is in itself reductionist. He has nominated—if not reified—one special aspect of human behavior, arbitrarily dismissing religion as irrelevant and biology as inadequate. But what is Reason? Are there no conflicts of Reason? How does one encourage Reason to prevail? And should it always? Only in the last few pages does Singer aver "We must begin to design our culture so that it encourages broader concerns without frustrating important and relatively permanent human desires." Certainly sociobiology does not have the last word in ethics, but Singer's defense of Reason as the way out is unconvincing and similarly inadequate.
Pub Date: Jan. 15, 1980
ISBN: 0192830384
Page Count: 190
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1980
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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